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Busy Season 2026: Chaos Looms as DOGE Cuts and OBBBA Changes Collide
Downsizing and backlogs become national policy.
By CPA Trendlines Research
The Internal Revenue Service is heading into the 2026 filing season with fewer employees, more complex tax law changes, and less capacity to resolve problems when returns go wrong — a combination federal watchdogs say will leave tax professionals managing the fallout even as headline service metrics appear stable.
JOIN the Busy Season Barometer daily pulse check for top trends, best practices, and emerging opportunities
MORE Tax, Busy Season, Outlook 2026
National Taxpayer Advocate Erin M. Collins says most taxpayers with straightforward, electronically filed returns should see few disruptions. But she warned that the true test of the filing season will be how the IRS handles the millions of returns that require human intervention — at a time when the agency’s workforce has been cut by more than a quarter.
With Congress Stalled, Tax Professionals Take Control of Preparer Standards
Why Tax Pros Are Imposing Standards on Themselves.
By CPA Trendlines Research
As the 2026 filing season begins, the National Association of Tax Professionals is launching a formal credentialing program for taxpayer representation.
MORE Tax, Busy Season, The Next Circular 230
The NATP is stepping into a regulatory void left by years of congressional inaction, leaving more than 500,000 paid preparers operating without national standards, even as IRS and GAO data show higher error rates on paid-prepared returns than on do-it-yourself filings, and Congress is delaying action.
The IRS in 2026: Quiet Backlogs, Harder Fixes, and Late Guidance
Less capacity, more obligation.
By CPA Trendlines Research
Identity theft is becoming one of the biggest time drains for tax professionals this filing season, and the IRS may be less equipped than ever to handle it.
JOIN THE BUSY SEASON SURVEY. GET THE RESULTS
MORE BUSY SEASON BAROMETER | MORE OUTLOOK 2026
According to the IRS Advisory Council—the body representing tax professionals—identity-theft refund cases now take nearly two years to resolve, as staffing cuts and system limits slow IRS response.
But identity theft is only one of a long list of problems that can only get worse this year. Tax professionals are bracing for prolonged client disputes and frustrating follow-ups with an understaffed, ill-equipped IRS.
Busy Season 2026: The Year CAS Firms Seize the Lead
Why is the busy season better for CAS accountants?
By CPA Trendlines Research
With busy season 2026, accountants specializing in client accounting services are reaping the benefits of a year’s worth of hard work, in a smoother path to April 15, more compliant clients, and higher fees, according to the CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer.
JOIN THE BUSY SEASON SURVEY. GET THE RESULTS
MORE BUSY SEASON BAROMETER | MORE CAS | MORE OUTLOOK 2026
The Busy Season Barometer marks the 2026 tax season as the breakthrough moment when CAS crosses from merely an aspirational experiment to a routine part of the service mix for small and midsize firms.
Top Tech Trends for Tax Season 2026
Holding Steady, Tuning Workflow, and Testing AI.
By CPA Trendlines Research
With the 2026 filing season approaching, most accounting firms are not racing to rip and replace their technology stacks. Instead, they are making selective adjustments, tightening workflows, and cautiously experimenting with artificial intelligence — all while keeping a close eye on staffing limits, client behavior, and return on investment.
JOIN the Busy Season Barometer survey here.
MORE TAX, PRICING, PAY, HIRING, and THE 2026 OUTLOOK
That restrained approach comes through clearly in CPA Trendlines’ Busy Season Barometer, which shows a profession that is less focused on transformation than on execution. The dominant theme across survey waves is not disruption, but discipline.
Profit Squeeze: Billing Rates Rebound, but Staff Costs Are Rising Faster
Accountants show renewed pricing power as rates gain 5.7%.
By CPA Trendlines
CPA firms are raising prices again as they enter 2026, even as hiring remains weak and wage pressures show little sign of easing. The combination is tightening margins across the profession.
MORE Outlook 2026, Pay, Hiring, Pricing
A CPA Trendlines analysis of new pricing data shows that billing rates for core CPA firm services are rebounding sharply, reversing an earlier soft patch and vaulting fees to near record highs. At the same time, employment growth across accounting firms has stalled, while wage growth remains elevated, underscoring the growing imbalance between pricing power and labor costs.
Busy Season 2026: Firms Look to Pricing for Growth
Revenues and client rosters outpace profit gains as firms battle cost pressures.
By CPA Trendlines
CPA firms heading into the 2026 tax season expect revenue gains driven primarily by higher prices, not by adding clients, even as a majority anticipate another heavy extension season.
JOIN the Busy Season Barometer survey here.
MORE TAX, PRICING, and THE 2026 OUTLOOK
According to the CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer, about 6 in 10 firms expect total revenue to increase this year, while roughly one-third expect revenue to hold steady. Profit expectations trail revenue slightly, a pattern that points to continued cost pressure even as clients and would-be clients clamor for more, and more high-end, services
Busy Season 2026: IRS Problems, Staffing Issues and Client Wrangling Emerge as Top Pressures
IRS dysfunction replaces OBBBA as top concern.
By CPA Trendlines
With only a week to go before the opening of filing season 2026, tax practitioners are focusing on IRS dysfunction as their biggest potential problem this year
And no wonder. The agency was already chronically underfunded, buried under a mountain of overdue paperwork, and crippled by ancient computer systems when it lost 25% of its workforce in early 2025.
JOIN the Busy Season Barometer survey here.
MORE TAX, PRICING, and THE 2026 OUTLOOK
Today 63% of tax professionals say a beleaguered IRS poses the single biggest risk to this year’s tax season, up from 54% just a couple of months ago, according to the CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer.
Busy Season 2026: How Ready Are You? It Depends
The answers track firm size and practice focus.
By CPA Trendlines Research
Across the profession, accountants heading into the 2026 Busy Season are not sounding alarms, nor are they celebrating breakthroughs. Instead, they are settling into a steady, almost restrained confidence.
JOIN the Busy Season Barometer survey here.
MORE TAX, PRICING, and THE 2026 OUTLOOK
The latest Busy Season Barometer reveals that firms’ sense of readiness bears a striking resemblance to where they stood a year ago. For some, this signals resilience. For others, it signals stagnation. The portrait that emerges is a profession caught between incremental improvements and persistent operational friction.
PE Deal Tracker: 147 Deals Build $200 Billion in New Value
100 deals a year: the new normal?
By CPA Trendlines Research
Cornerstone Report
Private equity-backed and PE-adjacent deals start the new year on a roll, with dozens of new combinations racing to year-end closes, driven by some of the biggest rollup platforms.
CPA Trendlines Research is adding 29 newly captured deals to the tracker, lifting the total to 147 deals since 2020 with more than $10 billion in new funding. The continuation of transactions into early 2026 suggests that 2025 was not a peak but a new normal, with deal flow stabilizing at a higher level than in the pre-2020 period.
MORE Cornerstone Reports | MORE Private Equity
To submit updates, additions, or additional information, contact CPA Trendlines here
CPA Trendlines estimates that today’s private-equity-driven revenue multiples imply an aggregate enterprise value of more than $400 billion for the Top 500 CPA firm sector as a whole — a valuation reset of more than $200 billion. READ MORE →
Outlook 2026: Accountants Brace for a Rough Economy
Expect strong demand for tax planning, business advisory and bookkeeping cleanup work.
By CPA Trendlines Research
The CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer indicates that tax and accounting leaders anticipate growth in their own firms, even as they prepare for anxious business clients, persistent inflation, and a policy environment that keeps planning on edge.
MORE Busy Season and 2026 Outlook
BUSY SEASON BAROMETER: Join the survey. Get the results
About half of all accountants in the survey are bracing for a deteriorating economy, with a third expecting rosier scenarios, for a net negative 17.2 percentage points. For small and mid-sized businesses, accountants are at a negative 9.3 points.
Outlook 2026: The Painful Paradigm Shift in Staff Pay and Hiring
New jobs data signal fundamental pivot for accounting firms.
By CPA Trendlines Research
The year 2026 may be long remembered as the paradigm-shifting moment when accounting firms were forced to pivot everything from their business models to their budgets.
MORE Outlook 2026, Pay, Hiring
The reason: Salary and pay increases are accelerating even as hiring momentum stalls.
Going into 2026, labor costs have been cleaved from labor supply. The new, structurally higher staffing line is forcing firms to rewrite their budgets as well as business models.
Outlook 2026: Agentic AI Reaches the Tipping Point in Tax and Accounting Firms
AI-powered firms are closing books faster, reallocating staff time to higher-value work, and widening the competitive gap with slower adopters.
By CPA Trendlines Research
Cornerstone Report
As artificial intelligence transitions from a buzzword to a business imperative, CPA firms across the U.S. are quietly beginning to deploy generative AI assistants, machine learning tools, and “agentic” AI platforms to automate audits, prepare taxes, and provide financial insights.
With the astonishing surge in AI adoption, firm leaders say we’ve reached a tipping point where those not investing in AI risk being left behind.
In this Cornerstone Report, accounting firms show how they are leveraging AI to transform their operations, the benefits and challenges they are encountering, and what it all means for the future of the profession, including:
- Why AI adoption in CPA firms has hit a tipping point
- How agentic AI is transforming tax, audit, and advisory work
- The real productivity, ROI, and revenue gains firms are reporting
- What AI means for staffing, skills, and firm economics
- The risks, governance challenges, and regulatory implications ahead
- How firm leaders can deploy AI without falling behind
The CPA PE Playbook: Private Equity 2026 Outlook & Strategy Guide
[PRO Members-Only Bonus]
The Definitive Guide to Private Equity’s Transformation of the CPA Profession
Exclusively for PRO Members Only, here
Not yet a PRO Member? Go PRO here
By CPA Trendlines Research
The accounting profession is changing faster than at any time in its modern history—and private equity is driving the shift. More than $30 billion in new capital has entered CPA firms since 2020, igniting a powerful wave of consolidation, modernization, and strategic reinvention. Firms that once relied on incremental growth and traditional partnership structures are now operating as high-performance platforms built for scale, technology adoption, and national reach.
The CPA PE Playbook is the most comprehensive analysis available today on this historic transformation.
If you want to know where the profession is heading, how PE-backed firms are competing, and what it will take to thrive in the next decade, this is the report you need.
Exclusively for PRO Members Only
(PRO Member Log in required)
Not yet a PRO Member? Upgrade with one of today’s great offers here.
Eighteen Stumbling Blocks to Merging in Smaller Firms
Fortunately, they all can be overcome … if everyone is willing.
By Marc Rosenberg
The Rosenberg Practice Management Library
Though not universally true, larger firms will find many aspects of smaller firms to be below their own standards.
MORE by Marc Rosenberg
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.
The questions that the acquiring firm needs to ask are:
- How severe are these weaknesses?
Answer Three Questions about Your Leadership
Do others think you’re ready to be partner?
By Martin Bissett
Passport to Partnership
The Passport to Partnership study collated a number of responses in a conversational style.
MORE by Martin Bissett
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.
But two brief but succinct examples on the realities of how a firm assesses an individual’s “competence” for leadership are showcased really stood out:
- They need to explain technical data to me in a way that I know they understand.
- What kind of lifestyle does this person have outside of work? We’ll be looking at Facebook, X and Google to find out.
Goldman Bets $75 Million on Fieldguide: AuditTech Comes of Age
Goldman’s rationale: Vertical AI with measurable ROI.
By CPA Trendlines
Fieldguide, an engagement workflow platform powered by agentic AI, has raised $75 million in a Series C round led by Goldman Sachs Alternatives, valuing the company at $700 million.
MORE: Jin Chang: Why Repeat Last Year’s Questions? | The Disruptors, with Liz Farr | Jin Chang: Why the Future Is in Risk Advisory | with Donny Shimamoto
MORE Tech and Assurance
The financing is one of the clearest signals yet that audit technology—long one of accounting’s most conservative corners—is becoming a prime target for growth equity investment.
Four Times to Spend Time on Tax Question Research
Sometimes “quick and easy” isn’t, but it’s still worthwhile.
By Ed Mendlowitz
Tax Season Opportunity Guide
I keep a few of the one-volume tax guides in my office so I could look up a quick answer when I need to. Recently a golf buddy emailed me a question that I thought I could answer quickly. He wanted to know that if he was in the “zero” percent capital gains tax bracket, did that apply to an unlimited amount of capital gains? Sounds like a simple question.
MORE by Ed Mendlowitz
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Well I looked it up online and then in three one-volume tax guides. Only one source had thorough coverage of the issue. I ended up spending an hour on this “simple” question including my emailed response. Nothing is simple anymore.
READ MORE →